food and the good air of all outdoors?" growled Bob. Then he said, "Show
her in."

Another minute and he had his answer.

A lady entered.

"Mr. Brownley?" She waited an instant to make sure he was the Virginian.

Bob bowed.

"I am Beulah Sands, of Sands Landing, Virginia. Your people know our
people, Mr. Brownley, probably well enough for you to place me."

"Of the Judge Lee Sands's?" asked Bob, as he held out his hand.

"I am Judge Lee Sands's oldest daughter," said the sweetest voice I had
ever heard, one of those mellow, rippling voices that start the
imagination on a chase for a mocking-bird, only to bring it up at the pool
beneath the brook-fall in quest of the harp of moss and watercresses that
sends a bubbling cadence into its eddies and swirls. Perhaps it was the
Southern accent that nibbled off the corners and edges of certain words
and languidly let others mist themselves together, that gave it its
luscious penetration--however that may be, it was the most
no-yesterday-no-tomorrow voice I had ever heard. Before I grew fully
conscious of the exquisite beauty of the girl, this voice of hers spelled
its way into my brain like the breath of some bewitching Oriental essence.
Nature, environment, the security of a perfect marriage have ever
combined to constitute me loyal to my chosen one, yet as I stood silent,
like one dumb, absorbing the details of the loveliness of this young